I was looking forward to the Griffin Knight. His coat of arms is ancient, first seen as a sticker in the 1970s (as you can learn from Tim's unmissable heraldry survey at
Animobil); it is the only coat of arms to remain in use throughout Playmobil's history. Since then this House has given us the original siege tower
3887 and the suburb castle
5783. A very distinguished house, yet its coat of arms has never featured as torso print – until now! Griffin Knight was hotly anticipated.
And it is a nice figure. The green belt used to be rare but can now be obtained in abundance. Armour arms and knight "chicken legs" have their appeal for some (I'm not a great fan), the helm and its griffin crest are fine, and so is the shield, cloak and weapons. But the body is what really matters, and there I feel a bit let down because the
coat of arms is printed too far up. You cannot apply loads of collars (chainmail for example, my collar of choice) without obscuring half a griffin's head! The only sensible thing to do is to put on a cloak, as in the original, which does limit customising potential.
A minor objection is the skin colour of the head, slightly darker than plain. I never have enough matching arms to accommodate an influx of new heads of this colour, and would have welcomed plain ones. A very minor, quite subjective objection.
All in all I'm happy but not completely over the moon.
Best wishes
StJohn